Cichlid Profiles - Cichlasoma trimaculatum
 

The Trimac or Three Spot Cichlid is one of the more popular cichlid brutes, famous for its vicious temper, and beautiful color much of which it passed on to Flowerhorns. It lives on the Pacific Slope of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. The body may be gold, yellow, lavender, or various light shades of brown.The fins are usually the same color as the body. The classic feature is the three very prominent ocelli, a large one circled in white or blue-white above the gill cover, a short row of them at midbody, and a large one on the caudal peduncle. The body is thick and reaches 15 inches for males, 10 for females. Males have a crimson belly behind the gill cover, a nuchal hump and often pearly fins.

These nasty predators are residents of slow moving rivers and lagoons, estuaries and almost pure salt water in some cases, and lurk on the bottom in the roots and mud to snare fish, crustaceans and large insects. They like 73-83 degrees water and pH of 6.6-8.2. They can be kept singly in 70 gallon tanks. They can live with similar tempered fish, and will hybrize with some of them, but such a tank should be hundreds of gallons with lots of rock hides. They are good parents that lay about 500 eggs on the substrate. Their corect genus is still undetermined and pictures and be found at Images of "Amphilophus or Cichlasoma trimaculatum.